Plants on a Wall

Hello all,
This will be a very quick post, but I wanted to show you our newest addition to the landscape along with a very old landscape specimen. Here they are.
I apologize if you blow this picture up. It was very windy when I took this picture, so it's not all in focus. With the new market of Living Walls taking shape, I wanted to remind you of how beautiful our Parthenocissus tricuspidata could be on a wall. The fall colors of this beauty are impeccable. It just goes to show you that Living Walls are not a new thing, but the technology sure has changed.

One of the newest additions to our landscape is this green wall. We recently hosted a Green Living Technology training and during the training they created this very interesting green wall. There are many species of plants here such as Carex 'Evergold' and Ajuga 'Black Scallop' just to name two. I am very interested in how this will look next year. I will keep you posted. If you would like further information on this kind of project, please email us at mgplanttrials@gmail.com

Beautiful Fall Colors

Hello friends,
This week is the week that proves most difficult in our industry. Threats of frost and snow mean covering plants in the nursery and annuals that look terrible! It's not a time most of us look forward to unless we have a nice plowing contract for the winter. I look forward to this time of the year because I love the colors fall produces. We were just talking in the office about how nice it usually is this time of the year. Where did the jeans and t-shirt weather go? We didn't seem to have it this year. Well, some plants are surely disrupted by this cold weather, but others go on looking great. Here are some examples of plants that look good after a hard frost.

This morning, I was excited to see this container. Usually the Geranium 'Jolly Bee' goes to bed after a hard frost, but here they are still blooming with a nice specimen of Festival Grass™ accompanying them. Both plants I predicted would look terrible today when I came in. I was wrong on both accounts. The Festival grass has really stood up well this year to all the climactic change. They still show the deep burgundy color everyone loves. While not hardy, the fact that they look good now speaks volumes for planting them in your customers planters. I am still not the biggest annual fan in the world. Or if you truly want to classify it differently and call it a tropical, that's fine. But this plant is beginning to win me over. It is worthy of being in our landscape and yours.

Flower Carpet® Scarlet
It is still blooming. And it's not just a scattering of blooms. This plant is really blooming well! The foliage is very glossy green and tough as nails. This is a great plant. It reminds me how nice the new generation of Flower Carpet® roses really are.


Calamintha nepeta ssp nepeta
I feel like I'm constantly sticking up for this plant in the landscape. I first have to talk about how it is a sterile plant and will not run you down like the straight species Calamintha nepeta would. Then I have to convince people that the bees that cover this plant throughout summer will not sting their customers as they walk to the front door. If you've ever been on a tour here, you know what I like to do to the bees. I dive into the plants and they all scatter drunkenly to the next plant to get more pollen. They don't care about me! But look at this picture taken today. For those of you looking for a long bloom time in the garden, it's still blooming. It has not stopped since June!!! This is a must have! If you don't like the scent of peppermint, well I can't help you there. But I am more than willing to sell you on this plant if you need more pushing!
Sedum kamtchaticum
Not the first plant you think of when considering fall color. But it should be up there. Think of this color as a groundcover! We have it installed on a roof here at the nursery and it looks stunning. We have it mixed with Allium 'Forescate' and other varieties of Sedum. Imagine having a planting of this as your groundcover, and Asters and Amsonia hubrechtii intermixed. Ooh. Bright yellows, purples and reds!
Iroquois Beauty™ Aronia
What a nice plant for fruit and fall color. Oranges and yellows and reds oh my! Add black to that and you have Iroquois Beauty™. This has the best fruit display of any Aronia I have ever seen. It stays short so it adds value because of that. These have not completely changed, so think of how great they could be! Though I like the contrast of green and oranges. Herman Tiedeman and I both agree that Aronia could be a great substitution for Burning Bush in the future, but the time is now to make the change! Aronia 'Brilliantissima' is the best for fall color and adds red fruit to boot.
Rhus copallina Prairie Flame™
It's not that we hate the look of Burning Bush. It's that it is so one dimensional. It turns red in fall. Yea! With Prairie Flame™, you add a bloom time in summer where it looks great again. The texture of the plant is far nicer than that of a burning bush. It does sucker a tad, but otherwise is a fabulous plant. The fall color is outstanding as well. Pictured in reds and purples, it also takes on tones of yellow and orange before it drops. Quite the nice plant.
Redwing™ Viburnum
When I started writing this, it wasn't intended to throw Euonymus alatus under the bus. But since I've started, I feel more inclined to do so. Not only does this have phenomenal foliage, but it is also a native cultivar. So it is beneficial to the environment in addition to being beautiful. The fruit of this species is attractive to birds. In early spring, the new foliage is a reddish tinge which gives it the name Redwing™ as the new foliage amongst older green foliage looks like the wings of a bird.
Corylus americana
Few shrubs rival American Hazelnut for fall color. It is also a native so there are many benefits to this plant. It produces hazelnuts for one!!! I've tried them, and they are just like the flavor you add to your coffee. They are tough to crack, so a nutcracker is recommended. If you are looking to plant the seeds, abrasion is necessary. Be careful though. It says to make a puncture hole on one side of the nut before planting. I'm still not sure what the best way to do that is. The way I tried produced a hole in my finger. Anyways, you can see how nice the foliage is.

It's hard to do a segment on fall color and not show you any trees. I walked by some Amelanchier and Sugar Maples that I would have liked to add. But shrubs are so often forgotten. Grasses and trees can be the easy stars of fall, but there are some great shrubs that deserve your attention as well. It's been a pleasure. Until next time, have a great day!

Free Hotdogs!

Hello everybody,
You may or may not be aware that this is Midwest Groundcovers' 40th Anniversary this year. Hopefully you are aware. But we've been having some great sales this year as well as some free hot dogs. You missed the October 5th free hot dog stand, but you are most welcome on the 12th as we dish out hot dogs from 11:00am to 1:00pm.
Look at the grill marks! Rick is the grill master! These are all beef hot dogs. All the condiments that you may like as well as some apple cider is on hand for you. Please come and enjoy the flavor.




Allium 'Ozawa'
I've shown a couple pictures this year of this plant. The anticipation of seeing what I see now was, to me, worth it. These are the open flowers of 'Ozawa'. Isn't she lovely? They don't look the greatest in containers, but for the landscape, they look fantastic this time of the year. Patience is a virtue. This one requires it.

Callirhoe involucrata
This is a plant that we are considering growing. They tend to send off some long arms, so we were unsure how that would go over. This is another plant whose virtues are worth waiting for. In the landscape you will be rewarded with fabulous color in summer and fall. Bottom line is, in a container, Callirhoe is lacking. Put it in the ground, and you have a superstar!

Aconitum fischerii
The late bloomer. These are not in our product line either, but I'm interested in the demand. If you want beautiful Monkshood, you should let us know. These are established plants in the landscape. I have them in full sun, but this plant will tolerate a good amount of shade as well. In fact, the shade is "preferred." I look at the plants in full sun, and wonder how they could look any better.

Miscanthus 'Autumn Red'
The farthest right of all the Miscanthus pictured, 'Autumn Red' creates a fairly upright clump that turns a nice mix of colors in the fall. This is most similar to 'Purpurascens' but with nicer fall color.

Yes! Michigan!

Hello again,
I had the pleasure of going to Michigan to look at some of our sample plants that various vendors have given us to trial. I wanted to see how things have been progressing and work with Drew, our production manager there on which plants we think we should grow. It really helps us when the accession and production groups get together so that we can all be on the same page. Communication is everything in this business. Maybe in all businesses for that matter. Here are some of the plants that we've added in the last few years for various reasons. And also pictured are some nice shots of crops growing there as we speak. In the next couple of weeks, Midwest Groundcovers will be having some great sales! Now is the time to buy plant material. But in addition to the great plants that we will be discounting are some fabulous regular priced items. I will show you one of the great deals, but mostly I wanted to show you some of the great plants that are not on sale and worth every penny we ask.
Phlox 'David's Lavender'
If you like Phlox 'David', then you should like his lavender counterpart. They have a nice colored flower similar to what we used to offer in 'Franz Schubert', but with greater mildew resistance. They are not all blooming now, but the plants are super clean and will perform well for you next year!


Aster tataricus 'Jin-Dai'
Several years ago we planted these in the garden here. They are very late bloomers, so I was never sure if there was a true market for them. Architects and designers have come late enough to see them bloom, and have had really nice words to say about them. A trip to Cleveland a couple years ago brought them back to my attention. They had planted them along a walkway that looked down onto another garden. The blooms were looking up at me with their bright yellow eyes, and I fell in love all over again. They do have a course foliage but they do not show off their naked legs like so many other Asters do. They do have a tendency to spread a little, but what good Aster doesn't?
Aster novae-angliae 'Purple Dome'
The crop of these look so nice right now. I always enjoy seeing a big crop like this one when everything is in bloom. If you were thinking about planting fall mums this week, why? Get some Asters! They'll even come back reliably. Oh, that's why.



Hosta 'June'
This is a favorite of mine. All Hosta have become a recent passion, but 'June' will forever remain the best. This is just the liners, but who wouldn't want to see this. I just made it the background for my computer monitor! It's always fun to see the baby plants, and if you are a grower, to see them mature into larger saleable plants. These babies will be saleable next year.

Hosta 'Frances Williams'
I have to admit that sometimes I forget about the oldies. One look at this crop and I realized that once I have more room to plant at home, I'll be buying some. They are so clean without the slightest touch of a slug. No damage on any plants whatsoever. So, remember that sometimes new doesn't always mean good. Don't forget about the beauties of days past.

Hosta 'First Frost'
So new doesn't always mean good, but in this instance it does. This is the Hosta of the Year 2010. It may not look like much now, but a mature plant of this is very nice. Think Hosta 'Halcyon' with white margins. In my opinion, 'Halcyon' is one of the best Hostas ever. Another sport of 'Halcyon' is 'June' so it has a history of nice children. I'm really excited that we will be able to offer this superb plant to you next year.
Echinacea Big Sky™ Harvest Moon
This is a house of Harvest Moon, just to show you how nice some of these plants still look. In the landscape, a mature plant may not still have as many blooms as these do, but it makes me think that if we could convert people into purchasing them at this time of year instead of mums, the world could be a much better place. Think about the additional benefits of coneflowers over chrysanthemums. After they are done blooming they still provide color with the goldfinches and other birds that will come to eat the seeds.
Echinacea 'Coconut Lime'
Even the double varieties look great in the pots. No need for white mums with these hanging around.





Veronica 'Royal Candles'
These still look superb as well.







Chelone 'Hot Lips'
I never fully understood the appeal of this plant. But I'm learning to love it. This year, these plants look great. They always do, but we always sell out so that I don't get to see them bloom this way. I planted them in the landscape a couple years ago when we finally had plants that I didn't feel guilty to take. I don't like to plant things that our customers really want and we don't have great quantities on. So we did plant them, and we do have good quantities now. Look at the great fall flower color these have. The houses are blooming like mad. If you are not familiar with these, they like some moisture and like some shade. I can't tell you how many times I've been asked about plants for moist shade. That explains why they are in such demand.
Let's move on to grasses:
Molinia 'Transparent'
This would be one of the plants that we are offering at a special price. Look at how nice they are. This is one of the best deals I've seen in a long time. For more information on the sale, please call us or go to our website at http://www.midwestgroundcovers.com/ and go to our availability for pricing.


Miscanthus sinensis 'Purpurascens'
I'm not always the most fond of Miscanthus. But seeing a large crop of 2700 #3 sized plants with their flowers glistening in the sunlight is a sight to see. Clearly they are available, so please don't hesitate to call and order some for your next pick up or delivery!



Sporobolus heterolepis 'Tara'
I always talk about how uniform a house of 'Tara' is, so I wanted to show you. Though I know the picture may not be in the greatest focus, you can get the point. You could put a level on top of these plants, and if the seed heads were strong enough, it would be perfect. This is such a uniform plant. For those that are afraid of the "native look", and still want the cilantro like smell of Sporobolus, try 'Tara'.

Sesleria autumnalis
As you can see, this is a very nice mass of plants. It's a different look than Pennisetum, but they will reliably live and look great season after season. And they are salt tolerant.




Phytolacca americana
Commonly known as Pokeweed, this is my favorite of all weeds. The problem with it is that it is terribly poisonous. If you have kids around, you should probably not have this plant. If you do not, then I say keep it. A friend of mine has a variegated one! Ooohhh! If it is close to an area where it could get stained by it's fruit juice, you may want to remove it as well. The birds in my neighborhood eat the fruit, which can cause a mess once digested. Birds apparently are immune to the poison but mammalian herbivores leave it alone.

Fall colors are coming. My next post will focus on that. Thanks again for reading. Until next time, have a great day.

The Conservation Foundation

Hello all,

A group of Midwest Groundcovers people went to The Conservation Foundation this week. We were given a nice tour by Jim Kleinwachter of the facility along with a lot of historical information on the site. It was quite fascinating to see one of the first dishwashers in the kitchen of the historical building. It only had and on/off button. Take a look at your dishwasher, if you have one, and see how many buttons it has! Anyways, if you have the opportunity, Jim is a wealth of information and very interesting to visit. Here are some pictures of the day.

The garden in front of us in this picture has what Jim calls his "A-list" natives. Plants like Rudbeckia, Echinacea, Liatris and Sporobolus reside here and are of the sort that the homeowner is comfortable with. If we can start with the "A-list", and then start to mingle in some of the companion natives like Ruellia and Pycnanthemum, we can get to a point where natives become common plants. Like they should be and some, like the A-list have already become.

Another view of the garden here, where the Sporobolus hovers over the path. The essential oils of this plant made my legs smell like cilantro all day. A welcome smell to me. To some, not so much. If you read last week's blog, then this is a path where people may not walk because the plants are there for the touching. More on that at the end.

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Solidago caesia

I'm always excited when I can't identify a plant. I've seen many Solidago in my lifetime, and I can have trouble differentiating them. But this one, I've never encountered. The blue leaved goldenrod was very bright and showy on this day. Something I'd consider for our product line. I'll see if I can get some for our landscape to see if it is one of those seedy Solidagos.

Liatris scariosa

I was pleasantly surprised by this plant. The flowers were very robust. When told this was Liatris scariosa, I was pleasantly surprised. I was once told that the Liatris that we call L. aspera, was really L. scariosa, and now I know that we were correct!!! They are very different. Anyways, this was frequented by many an insect. In this picture, if blown up, you'll see at least three different organisms enjoying it's sweet nectar.

Stylophorum diphyllum

I was very surprised to see this beauty in bloom. Typically, Celandine poppies are blooming in spring. If soils dry, it typically would go dormant. But here it was, blooming and looking quite clean for the time of year. Maybe it was because it was in the children's garden. There were a good number of annuals in there that most likely require some water. My guess is this little guy gets the occasional shower.

Hibiscus moscheutos

I have to admit to not liking most Hibiscus. But there is something about going into a natural area and knowing that this really is a native. Wow! There were many plants in bloom this day, most having a white center. I had to climb through the plants to get this view, and it was worth it. Beside it, were the remains of a cut down purple loose strife. I'd much rather see the Hibiscus!

Nymphoides peltata

This was the plant that truly stumped me. It took some looking around to finally identify it. The common name is "Floating Hearts", which I find to be sort of nice. I'm not the common name kind of guy, but I could see sending a floating heart to my wife! That sounds so nice. What is really nice is that this is a native plant as well. What a beauty!

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I received a couple differing views on why people were not touching the plants at Millennium Park. One thought was that people's skins are more sensitive to different things. I did not realize that Zizia could cause burning on your skin. Maybe the people are afraid of any allergic reaction they may have to the plant. Another person disagreed entirely, and this is what they wrote;

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Assuming most of the visitors were landscape architects…I believe they were observing the Lurie garden as a piece of artwork. A creation on display to be appreciated as one appreciates art. And with the Art Institute now stretching it’s arms out into Millennium Park…who could resist the subliminal parallel with art. Of course, when one appreciates art in a museum, one cannot touch it – or only so in very rare instances. It is most respectful to keep one’s distance. Landscape Architects are an artful group of people and often a gentle and very respectful group of people. I don’t think the reasons you pondered about why they wouldn’t touch the plants were at all what was in their minds. I think the art on display model is more accurate. Their lack of plant touching was showing their respect for the creation they were appreciating. Make sense? It is an interesting observation, and perhaps LA’s need to be specifically welcomed to enter the work of art and touch it… As a landscape architect nursery person, I very often touch plants as part of my appreciation of them and derive much pleasure from it…I think most LA’s just need a push and they will delight in the ‘FEEL’ of plants!

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While not everyone that I was watching was a landscape architect, it does bring up some interesting points. Truth is, everyone probably had a different reason for not wanting to touch the plants. But the bottom line is, the "FEEL" of plants that was mentioned above, can do a lot for ones' soul and should be explored more often.

Thanks again for reading. I'll be going to Michigan next week, so I'll be able to see some of the trial plants that I've yet to install. I'll bring back some photos from our nursery over there. Until next time, have a great day!